Anatoly Serdukov’s abrupt dismissal as defense
minister on November 6 reminds us that personal politics are paramount in
modern Russia. Ostensibly, Serdyukov was dismissed over embezzlement
allegations surrounding the Defense Ministry holding company Oboronservis. But
other ministers have weathered worse and until very recently, Serdyukov had
seemed to enjoy President Vladimir Putin’s full support. Something had changed
to make him a liability.

It was not because the high command despised
Serdyukov. They have been grumbling for years and in a way the more they did,
the more he could use this as proof that he was actually doing his job. Reform,
after all, is usually painful.

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Instead, he was laid low by personal relationships and
rumors of an affair. His father-in-law, former Prime Minister and close Putin
ally Viktor Zubkov, wanted his head. Serdyukov was a trusted underling, but
Zubkov is a powerful figure in his own right and also one of Putin’s inner
circle. Forced to choose between the minister and the chairman of Gazprom’s
board, Putin sided with the latter. The moral of the story (beyond being
faithful to your wife) is that a powerful personal friend of the president has
much more clout than a competent minister or, indeed, the entire high command.

This marks a key crossroads for military reform.
Serdyukov had only started the process, and the practical impact of many of his
specific measures is open to question. The army is no longer structured in
Soviet-style divisions but smaller brigades and battalion tactical groups,
which should be more flexible. Inroads have been made into the bloated,
top-heavy officer corps. Many problems remain. However, Serdyukov does deserve
credit for beginning to drag the Russian military out of its Soviet past.

The next steps are to improve the quality of soldiers
and especially junior and non-commissioned officers (which means making sure
they have decent quarters and aren’t bullied), develop tactics which will allow
the army to use its shiny new weapons, and make sure those weapons are the ones
the military really need. After all, at the moment too much of what they get is
late, overpriced, out-of-date and what the defense industries want to build.

This sets a formidable series of challenges for
Serdyukov’s successor, Sergei Shoigu, the former emergency situations minister
and, for six months, governor of the Moscow Region. Putin clearly regards
Shoigu as one of his “go to” executives, someone on whom he can rely to sort
out difficult problems. In his 18-year tenure as minister, Shoigu took a
disparate and near-collapse collection of firefighters, civil defense troops
and other emergency workers – and made it work.

He has the potential to be an even more effective
defense minister. Although he
holds the rank of general, he is an engineer and an administrator, no more a
soldier than Serdyukov. But he knows how to work with the “siloviki,” the “men
of force” of the security apparatus. He also knows how to modernize
conservative and dysfunctional structures. The next stage of reform will
require looking beyond the ministry, taking on the defense industries and
defending the military budget, even while sparring with the generals. That will
require a more deft political touch than Serdyukov’s – as well as a willingness
to take on powerful vested interests.

Shoigu may have the skills and the backbone for this
fight, but will he choose to? With Putin looking increasingly distant, members
of the elite are beginning to think the unthinkable: who might end up
succeeding him. These range from the nationalist showman Dmitry Rogozin and
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin to Putin-understudy and troubleshooter Dmitry
Kozak. Shoigu is also on this list. He is perennially the most popular minister
in the government, energetic and capable. As a future prime minister, even
president, he makes a credible candidate.

So far, Shoigu has seemed a loyal, practical fixer –
just what the Defense Ministry needs. But if he does harbor these ambitions –
and no one yet is voicing any such thoughts – then it could incline him to
pushing reform forward to show his modernizing credentials.

However, it’s more likely that it would encourage him
to be less aggressive. After all, would he really want to be characterized as
the man who shut down arms factories and bought even more foreign-made
equipment (even if it may be better and cheaper)? The man who slashed military
strength, even as tensions rise in the North Caucasus (even if Russia cannot
man its existing units)?

In many ways, the outcome of the next stage of
military reform will depend on quite which campaign Shoigu decides to fight.

Mark Galeotti is Professor of Global Affairs at New
York University. His blog, “In Moscow’s Shadows,” can be read here.

The opinion of the writer may not necessarily reflect the position of RBTH or its staff.